Anyhow, I have been on the primal blueprint lifestyle for nearly 2 weeks now, didn't want to post too premature on my own progress - as I wanted to post my summary (food diary) for minimum 2 weeks worth.

The purpose of the above was exactly that, to hear peoples opinions since it's conflicting with primal research - I have my own opinion but only wanted to hear others.

Also, I posted it because the bbc news agency is reputable - I wouldn't post an article from an unknown source.

Anyhow, I have been on the primal blueprint lifestyle for nearly 2 weeks now, didn't want to post too premature on my own progress - as I wanted to post my summary (food diary) for minimum 2 weeks worth.

The purpose of the above was exactly that, to hear peoples opinions since it's conflicting with primal research - I have my own opinion but only wanted to hear others.

Also, I posted it because the bbc news agency is reputable - I wouldn't post an article from an unknown source.

Neil

Hi Neil,

I haven't been able to read the whole paper but based on what I have managed to glean, two points stand out - firstly it is based on food diaries, with 4 surveys and 7-day long diaries collected from participants over 15 years or so. The likely accuracy of the diaries and also how representative they are must be fairly questionable!

Secondly,even if that isn't the case, as this is looking back, it can only demonstrate correlation and not causation. Having not seen the full study I don't know to what degree they go into the actual food data, but on the top level, they were asking "do you eat meat", "do you eat fish" and categorised people into 4 groups (meat, fish, vegetarian, vegan). What we don't know is what accompanies the meat. I would say (and I'm guessing), that meat may well come in a bun. With ketchup. And fries.

Without wishing to get all superior about it, primal living is about eating non-processed good quality (as good as you can afford) food which includes meat in addition to veg, and not the bun! As a lapsed vegetarian, I eat far more vegetables, salads etc with my meat now than I ever ate as a veggy.

So even if food diaries are accurate and even if they showed a causation between meat and heart disease, it would still not truly condemn a diet that is full of fresh unprocessed foods from both animal and plant origin.

And that's before we consider the likelihood of someone eating burgers and chips doing any exercise!

hope that helps, but looking forward to someone else coming along to build on this...

Observational study, not a clinical trial. In other words, not science... Like NigelBailey said, the diets themselves were broken up along very arbitrary lines. It studied vegetarian diets to every other way of eating combined. So Primal and Paleo eaters were lumped into the same category as those who eat nothing but fast food. Since only one in four meals in the UK are actually home cooked ( Only ONE in every meal is now home cooked (... that's a 30 per cent drop since the eighties) | Mail Online ) the most likely culprit for the difference is again fast food. It is VERY likely that vegetarians cook a much higher percentage of their own meals.

This study says nothing whatsoever about the health benefit (or lack thereof) of eating Primal/Paleo. It does show a LINK (but not causation) between vegetarian diets and lower heart risk VS. a SAD diet. It seems very likely that the same study could have been described this way, "Diets that depend on pre-cooked meals and not home-cooked meals are 32% more likely to cause heart disease." But that isn't the message that the authors wanted to convey.

Sorry Neil, usually people come here to post things like this as their first post purely for drama (or spam).
There are lots of articles that are against the primal way of life, you just have to pick which to believe really.
Trying it for yourself is the best way to know

Pretentious moniker and a holier than than attitude. I'm guessing you're not very old.

If you read the responses more carefully, you'll find some very obvious criticisms of the study. There is no indication that there will be benefit in including more vegetables into a whole food diet because there is no establishment of cause

Four years Primal with influences from Jaminet & Shanahan and a focus on being anti-inflammatory. Using Primal to treat CVD and prevent stents from blocking free of drugs.